16 BULLETIN 1237, U. ft. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
Fig. 5.— Packing house of a local association. 
in land, buildings, and equipment, ranged from $20,000 to §160,000 
(fig. 5). A representative association has approximately $7,000 
invested in land, $32,000 in buildings, and $25,000 in equipment, not 
including such supplies as box shook, paper wrappers, and nails, 
which must be renewed from year to year. 
At the packing house the fruit is washed, dried in mechanical driers, 
and graded. Oranges pass on moving belts, or conveyors, through 
all these operations and are carried directly to mechanical sizers, 
where the various sizes are deposited in canvas bins. The fruit is 
wrapped and packed immediately. Lemons, on the other hand, are 
stored for weeks or months before being packed and shipped. The 
length of time the fruit must be stored depends upon its maturity at 
harvesting. 
The average packing-house expense for the five-year period 1917 
to 1922 was 55 cents per packed dox for oranges and 90 cents for 
lemons. In both cases, direct material and labor constituted 78 per 
cent of the total cost of packing-house operations, and indirect charges 
22 per cent. The cost of each item of expense per box was higher 
for lemons than for oranges because of the larger amount of Labor 
required and the need for curing. Lemons can not be sized by ma- 
chinery because of their irregular shape, and this makes necessary 
a greater proportionate use of hand Labor. Then, too, lemons must 
be cured tor several weeks, and the fruit must therefore be handled 
twice. 
Packing expenses steadily increased between 1917 and 1921, for 
oranges from 'tf to 73 cents per packed box, and for lemons from 70 
